British TV Comedies

Chapter 1 Introduction: The Aesthetics and Politics of British TV Comedy

Chapter 2 A Golden Age of British Sitcom? Hancock’s Half Hour and Steptoe and Son

Chapter 3 ‘Your Little Game’: Myth and War in Dad’s Army

Chapter 4 ‘The Struggle of Class against Class is a What Struggle?’ Monty Python’s Flying Circus and its Politics

Chapter 5 The Rag Trade: ‘Everybody Out!’ Gender, Politics and Class on the Factory Floor

Chapter 6 ‘Sambo’ and ‘Snowflake’: Race and Race Relations in Love Thy Neighbour

Chapter 7 ‘You Snobs! You Stupid… Stuck-Up… Toffee-Nosed… Half-Witted… Upper-Class Piles of… Pus!’ Basil Fawlty’s Touch of Class and Other Hotel Matters in Fawlty Towers

Chapter 8 Ignorant Master, Capable Servants: The Politics of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister

Chapter 9 Zany ‘Alternative Comedy’: The Young Ones vs. Margaret Thatcher

Chapter 10 The Uses of History in Blackadder

Chapter 11 Black British Comedy: Desmond’s and the Changing Face of Television

Chapter 12 Laughing at Racism or Laughing with the Racists? The ‘Indian Comedy’ of Goodness Gracious Me

Chapter 13 Exploding Family Values, Lampooning Feminism, Exposing Consumerism: Absolutely Fabulous

Chapter 14 Comic Strategies of Inclusion and ‘Normalisation’ in The Vicar of Dibley

Chapter 15 Subverting the Sitcom from Within: Form, Ideology and Father Ted

Chapter 16 ‘The Lady of the House Speaking’: The Conservative Portrayal of English Class Stereotypes in Keeping Up Appearances

Chapter 17 Family Life in Front of the Telly: The Royle Family

Chapter 18 Old Jokes: One Foot in the Grave, Comedy and the Elderly

Chapter 19 Spin, Swearing and Slapstick: The Thick of It

Chapter 20 Life is Stationary: Mockumentary and Embarrassment in The Office

Chapter 21 From Ever-Lusting Individuals to Ever-Lasting Couples: Coupling and Emotional Capitalism

Chapter 23 Laughing in Horror: Hybrid Genre and the Grotesque Body in Psychoville